The plot is about an inventor named Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) developing a machine that turns water into food. Flint destroys the machine, but somehow his invention survives and is now creating food animals. They’re really food beasts — self-aware pickles, hungry tacodile supremes, shrimpanzees, hippotatomuses, cheese spiders, melon heads, mosquitoasts, watermelophants, and apple-piethons. Now, it’s up to Flint and his friends to put a stop to the machine and save the world.

The first “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” took its cues from disaster movies, but the second film is more like “Jurassic Park,” said film director Cody Cameron during a press conference held at the San Diego Comic Con.

The filmmaker laughed about taking cues from classic ’80s movies like “Return of the Jedi,” “E.T.,” “The Goonies” and others.

There's “definitely some ‘Teen Wolf’ in there,” he said.

The film's new edible monsters include a set of pickles set on eating sardines, a very cute strawberry named Barry, terrifying cheeseburger spiders and one very frightened leek in a boat. A leek is a type of onion, but kids will giggle at the play on words: “Help, there’s a leek in the boat!”

Kids will also recognize the oddball characters, such as policeman Earl (voiced by Mr. T), Chicken Brent (voiced by Andy Samberg), jack-of-all-trades Manny (voiced by Benjamin Bratt) and Steve the Monkey (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris) who helps to take down the FLDSMDFR machine, which causes giant food to rain down from the sky.

The movie is set “literally 60 seconds after the first film ends,” Cameron said. The sequel takes the characters on a madcap adventure from Swallow Falls to San Fran Jose and then back to Swallow Falls again, this time to destroy the machine that causes giant food to rain down from the sky.

The film’s new voices include Will Forte as Flint’s childhood science idol, the hologram-loving genius Chester V who offers Flint a job at the tech think tank Live Corp; and Kristen Schaal as Chester’s assistant/creation Barb; an orangutan with a human brain.

“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2” is a fun and entertaining movie for families with children. There is lots of eye candy with the funky foodimals beautifully rendered in 3D, plus the fast-paced plot and food puns will hold your attention to the end.

“I love the way the movie turned out,” said Anna Ferris during the San Diego Comic Con. “We worked on it for a year and you really don’t know what’s going on until you see it on the big screen. It’s amazing how it all comes together. There’s something for everyone. Kids and adults alike will laugh themselves silly.”